by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In California, Vertimass gained its intermediate technology validation with the US DOE’s Bioenergy Technology Office, which verified performance against negotiated milestones, provided progress on scale-up, and reviewed Vertimass’ estimated cost for their transformative catalytic technology. BETO verification effectively opens the door for Vertimass to move to demonstration scale of its technology for converting ethanol into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel blend stocks and the chemical building blocks benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX).

The technical backstory

Here’s the science starting point: if you dehydrate ethanol, you get ethylene, a hydrocarbon — and you are on the road to longer-chain hydrocarbon territory like kerosene, or jet fuel. Now, most technologies out there would consume roughly 2-2.5 ethanol molecules to produce a jet fuel molecule.

Vertimass uses a direct catalytic conversion process originally explored at Oak Ridge National Lab. Early-stage results out of the Vertimass labs and Oak Ridge suggest an average of 1.6 molecules of ethanol, to 1 molecule of diesel, jet or gasoline.

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As CEO Charles Wyman explains, … “Although some may be concerned with the loss of volume, it is important to remember that because the reaction is only slightly exothermic, no hydrogen or other magic ingredients are added, and water has no heating value/ So, the hydrocarbons produced contain most of the energy from the ethanol but in a more compact molecule better suited to jet and diesel applications. The key objective is to preserve the energy of the reactants in the products, while loss of mass can enhance the energy density as is vital for jet and diesel. Overall, I don’t believe that there is a lower cost process for making fungible hydrocarbon fuels from biomass.”

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So, let’s sum up the potential advantages (yet to be demonstrated at scale):